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How to help stop procrastination, stop neck pain and headaches, clear your head and smash those exams.
With so much emphasis put on exams like the HSC, it's crucial that kids and their parents understand the facts. In this article, you will be given 3 tips to succeed in exams, including how to study effectively, avoid procrastination, manage the stress and anxiety and get the most out of your brain.
I consider myself extremely lucky that at the end of year 11, I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to be an Osteopath with a multi-disciplinary team in a beautifully renovated old house. Fast forward 17 years and my dream has come true. But it wasn't easy and I've made mistakes along the way. When you know what you want to do, it gives you purpose and direction. That was the good news for me. The bad news was, when you want to do a course with a minimum admission mark of well over 90, you need to knuckle down and work harder than you ever have. So I did what made sense to me and my parents at the time. I gave up sport, social activities and began to study non-stop.
As a result, I started eating crap food and adopted bad sleep patterns which equated to an extra 15kgs on the scales. It’s quite possibly the worst I’ve felt in my life. That’s why I’m writing this article. After studying health science at University for 6 years, I had no choice but to learn how to study effectively and efficiently. So here are my 3 tips to stop procrastination, stop neck pain and headaches, clear your head and smash your exams.
1. Don’t Stop Exercising Your body works best when it’s moving. This includes brain function, immune system and, and, and… The list goes on. Exercise is the strongest natural anti-depressant and can help reduce anxiety and stress, as well as make you feel better as a result of endorphins. In a nutshell, if you are moving well throughout study periods, you are less likely to get sick, you will feel better, manage stress better, concentrate better, retain information better and cope better. Exercise doesn’t mean running. I would suggest you do a mixture of what works for you. Whether that’s walking, stretching, yoga, running, gym, weights, martial arts, rock climbing, dancing or sport.
Whatever you enjoy and your body can tolerate well.
2. Structure Your Study I found that the best way to structure my study was with 45 minutes of solid, laser focused study, then 15 minutes of exercise. Any more than this, my brain struggled to retain the information. I was easily distracted and began to procrastinate. You know the funny thing is, once I started employing this strategy, I started doing better in my exams, despite actually studying less.
3. Keep Your Head Up I mean this literally. When you are spending hours reading, typing and scrolling, it’s really important to maintain good ergonomics. The muscles in the back and neck are really good at supporting your body; however, if you are slouched or looking down too much, those muscles will fatigue and become shortened and sore. Shortened and sore muscles can lead to back and neck pain, tension headaches and cloudy head.
I found implementing these 3 strategies to be a game changer for effective study, hence how I was able to continue it for 6 years beyond high school. I would have loved to have learnt this a lot earlier than I did, so I hope by writing this, others will be able to implement the strategies earlier or help people around them who are studying. Please feel free to share this information with whomever you want. The more who read it the better. I’d love to hear feedback or comments. So if you have a spare minute, please comment below and let me know which part of this article helped you most.